Printed in Great Britain. Pergamon Press Ltd. © 1984 IUPAC SOME NEW LINEAR AND BRANCHED POLYMERS

can only be copolymerized, for example with maleic anhydride, maleimide, acrylonitrile, n-butylmethacrylate, or butadiene. With butyllithium, linear homopolymers having molecular weights up to 300,000 and very narrow distribution are obtained. Their glass transition temperature is about 220°C. Since the poly-reaction proceeds via "living polymers", diblock and triblock copolymers are available. Triblock copolymers with butadiene are thermoplastic elastomers. Synthesis and cationic polymerization of two unsaturated cyclic acetals are described. 4H,7H-Dioxepine forms linear polymers with cis 1,4-butadiene units in the main chain. These polymers as well as copolymers of this monomer with dioxolane or tn-oxane can undergo several addition reactions at the double bonds. Thus, a chemical modification or a cross-linking of acetal polymers is possible. The metalation of some polyamides and the alkylation at the N-atom are described. With these methods comb-like polymers with well—defined branching points and definite length of the branches are obtained. Polyamides with long side chains ex-hibit side chain crystallinity. N-alkylated linear polyethylen imine is another example of comb-like polymers. These polymers form organic soluble chelate complexes with transition metal salts. POLYMERIZATION OF 2-ISOPROPENYLNAPHTHALENE The ability of 2-isopropenylnaphthalene (1) to polymerize has been known for over 20 years. Due to the inconvenient synthesis of this monomer on a labo-ratory scale, its polymerization behavior has scarcely been evaluated; in contrast to well-known analogous compounds such as-methylstyrene and 2-vinylnaphthalene (Ref. 1-5). Recently, a novel commercial synthesis of 1 has been developed (Ref.6) with naphthalene and propene as starting products. This monomer (99 % purity, m.p. 54°C), has been utilized for our experiments